Tora's Story
by ToraKU
Summary: The story of a young girl who is discovered by Sasori and Itachi in one of Orochimaru's abandoned bases. She's severely injured and has endured many of Orochimaru's experiments. After being saved by Itachi, what will happen when she is taken in and raised by the Akatsuki? Warning: This is about my original character. Let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy it :)
1. Chapter 1

"Looks like he knew we were coming," Sasori comments as he and Itachi walk through the vacant torch lit hallways of Orochimaru's hideout. As they walk they come across the weak and barely breathing body of what must be one of Orochimaru's failed experiments. "He couldn't even be bothered to put his failures out of their misery," Sasori says as in a monotone voice as he stabs said body with his puppet, Hiruko's, tail.

"Let's just focus on the mission. We're just here to get whatever information he may have left behind, remember?" Itachi asks as the two continue to walk down the hall.

"I know why we're here," Sasori says as they come to a fork in the hallway.

Itachi looks to Sasori to make the decision seeing as he's been here before and should have some idea of where things are.  
Sasori looks at the two different hallways before heading down the right one. "This way," he says and Itachi follows him down the hall. Eventually they come across a large door. Both of them pause in front of it and then look at each other. "You feel that right?" Sasori asks him.

Itachi nods. "Yes, I do…" He then looks at the door and activates his Sharingan in preparation for what may await them on the other side of that door.

Sasori readies his puppets tail as Itachi reaches for the door knob. He gives Sasori a nod and then throws the door open. They both quickly enter the darkened room ready to attack whatever may be in there. However, they're caught off guard when they find themselves face to face with a girl who could be no more than five, wielding a sword made of bone and looking at them with the Mangekyo Sharingan. Sasori gets ready to go in for the kill anyways, however, Itachi stops him.

"Wait a minute," he says and slowly moves toward the girl who tenses up and takes a step back upon seeing him move. "I'm not going to hurt you," he says quietly as he looks at the girl. It's hard to make out her features in this lighting, but her hair, which is all knotted and tangled, appears to be a reddish orange color. All she has on for clothing is a torn and dirtied dress that's made from a bunch of different rags sewn together. She also appears to be rather thin and Itachi notices that she's shaking. Then his eyes are drawn to her left arm with dangles at her side but it's so torn up and broken that you can barely tell it's an arm. He can vaguely see that she's still bleeding from all the wounds on her arm. That's when he also notices that even though she's standing her ground she's utterly terrified. Both Sasori and Itachi look at the girl, amazed that she's still standing.

"Wh-where's the man with the snake eyes?" she asks him, wavering a little. "And the one with the glasses?"

"They're not here anymore. What are you doing here?" he asks her.

She continues to shake and her eyes begin to bleed from the use of the Mangekyo Sharingan. "Snake eyes helped us. Experiments. Needles. Blood. D-death," she says, trembling as she remembers all the things that have been done to her and the things she's seen.

Itachi kneels down in front of the girl and places his hand on her left hand and pushes down on it gently so she lowers her sword. "Relax we're not going to hurt you. Why don't you stop using your Sharingan. Your eyes must hurt," he says softly.

The girl just looks at him. "Don't know how," she says. "Just happens on its own."

Itachi frowns and then looks into her eyes and says, "Sleep little one."

Sasori watches curiously as the girl goes limp and begin to fall to the floor. However Itachi catches her before she hits the ground. "Genjutsu? Aren't we supposed to be focusing on the mission? This girl is of no use to us. We should just kill her now," he says, watching the Uchiha stand up straight, holding the small girl in his arms. She looks rather peaceful now with a soft smile on her face.

"This is an exception. I don't have time to explain right now," Itachi says and begins to walk towards the doorway. "I'm going back to the hideout, you'll be ok on your own I assume?" he asks the ex-sand ninja.

Sasori watches the other. If he could actually be seen there would be a frown on his face. "Of course I'll be fine, Pain isn't going to be happy though."

"I'll deal with that later right now I need to deal with this," Itachi says and then vanishes in a burst of crows.

Sasori sighs and then gets out of Hiruko so he can look through the scattered papers and examine all the different vials in the room. "Whoever that girl is. She's going to be trouble," he mumbles to himself and then gets to work on the task at hand.

* * *

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it. Leave a review and let me know what you think :D I'll be posting chapters weekly so I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy this story.


	2. Chapter 2

Pain immediately senses Itachi's return to the main Akatsuki hideout and goes to meet him. "What is this foreign chakra I'm sensing?" he asks himself as he heads for the entrance of the base. He gets there just in time to see Itachi coming inside with a small orange haired girl in his arms. "I send you out to gather intelligence from Orochimaru's base and instead you bring this child here?"

"She may be able to provide us with valuable information in regards to some of Orochimaru's work," Itachi tells him.

"You may have a good point, however, why didn't you just get the information there. It should have been an easy feat for you and Sasori," Pain says and crosses his arm.

"That may be true, however she possesses the Sharingan and is capable of using the Mangekyo Sharingan. I want to know if the eyes are her's," Itachi explains. "There's only one place they could have come from if she wasn't born with them," he adds with a sullen expression on his face.

"Well whatever the case, this is no place for a child," Pain says.

"Well at least let Sasori treat her when he comes back. For all we know she could be an asset to this organization," Itachi says.

Pain watches him closely. "What are your intentions here Itachi? There's something you're not telling me."

"I have no ill intentions. I just need to ask her some questions.," he replies.

"Fine. She can stay here for the amount of time it takes her to recover." Pain says

"Understood," Itachi says.

"I'll have Konan meet you in the infirmary. She can perform basic first aid for the girl until Sasori gets back," Pain says and then turns to leave. However he stops when he sees Konan standing there. It's obvious that she heard everything.  
"I'll take her from here," she says and walks over to Itachi. Itachi hands the girl off to Konan, who takes her gently in her arms and then carries her to the infirmary. Itachi follows her there.

When they get there, Konan gently lays the girl down on one of the cots and then goes around the room, grabbing the things she'll need. "Itachi can you fill up this bowl with water?" she asks, holding a metal bowl out to the other.

Itachi takes the bowl from her and goes over to the nearby sink and fills it up as asked.

Konan then goes over to the girl and pulls a chair up next to the cot. Once she's seated she starts by removing the tattered the remains of the small girls' clothing so she assess the external damages that's been done. Itachi then comes over with the bowl of water and sets it down on the table right next to her. "Is there anything else you need me to do?" the Uchiha asks.

Konan shakes her head, "No, that will be all." She then begins to work on cleaning and treating the cuts and scratches that litter the girls' body. "This poor girl," she murmurs to herself as she takes cares of her.

Itachi watches her work for a couple seconds before going to wait for Sasori to return.

* * *

Sasori arrives back at the base hours later and is surprised when he sees that Itachi is waiting for him. "Where's the girl?" he asks.

"Konan is with her. She's preformed basic first aid on her. We've just been waiting for you to return," Itachi replies.

"I have to get this information to Pain first. I can take a look at her after that though," he says, holding up the scrolls he brought back with him

Suddenly something begins to come up through the floor behind Sasori. "Hello Zetsu, I assume Pain sent you?" Itachi asks the plant man coming up through the floor.

"Looks like you've caught me again Itachi," the white half says and smiles a little. "I'm just here for the information you gathered Sasori."

Sasori tosses the scrolls over to Zetsu, "Tell him that's all I could find. He cleared out his hideout quickly and efficiently. There were only a few things left that I could find that would be of any use to us," he explains.

Zetsu catches the scrolls. "I'll be sure to tell him that," the black half says. "See ya!" the white half exclaims and then he goes back down through the floor, leaving Itachi and Sasori alone again.

"She's in the infirmary," Itachi says and then begins to walk in the direction of the infirmary.

Sasori follows after him in his puppet. "Did you release the Genjutsu you used on her?" he asks as they walk down the hall.

"No, not yet. I didn't want her to wake up while Konan was working," Itachi explains.

"Alright, well I need you to release it. If she wakes up I'll sedate her," the ex-sand ninja says as they enter the infirmary.

Konan is still there, however, she is no longer treating the girl. "That was faster than I expected," she says and gets up. "I did what I could, cleaned her up a bit and treated the cuts and bruises on her body. There wasn't much I could do for her arm though with the condition it's in. I managed to stop the bleeding for the most part though."

Sasori approaches the cot and looks at Konan and Itachi. "Itachi, release the Genjutsu. After that I need both of you to leave," he orders.

Konan leaves the room leaving just Itachi and Sasori. Itachi then releases the Genjutsu before leaving as well. The girl doesn't wake.

Once the two are gone Sasori shuts the door and locks it so no one will walk in on him. After that's done he gets out of Hiruko and takes a seat in the chair next to the cot. He looks over the girl in front of him. He starts with her arm seeing that's the most physically damaged part of her. "This is going to be awhile," he says to himself before getting to work.

* * *

Itachi waits outside the infirmary, only leaving his spot for food and bathroom breaks. Sasori of course never comes out of the infirmary seeing as food and bathroom breaks are unnecessary for him.

Finally after what seems like days when really it's only been about 15 hours Sasori exits the infirmary. He is once again hidden inside his puppet.

Itachi stands up from where he was sitting. "Well? How is she doing?" he asks the other.

"She's stable but, whether or not she wakes up is a whole different story," Sasori begins.

"What do you mean?" the raven haired ninja asks.

"Well her body sustained severe injuries and she was experimented on numerous times. It would appear that Orochimaru forcefully awakened both her Sharingan and Mangekyo Sharingan," Sasori explains.

"So the eyes are hers," Itachi muses.

"Yes they are. I also discovered that it would appear she doesn't have much control over when the Sharingan activates. While I was examining her eyes the Sharingan suddenly activated. That alone caused damage to her eyes. I had to cut off the flow of chakra to her eyes so that she won't go fully blind."

"Just the Sharingan caused damage to her eyes? I've never seen that happen. Then again, you did say it didn't awaken naturally so I would suppose that would have something to do with it," Itachi comments

"That and there's the fact that Orochimaru used something on her that caused her to age quickly. Believe it or not she's only three years old. Whatever he used made her grow to around where most kids would be at 6. Her chakra is also much stronger than an average child. It's about twice what it should be. I managed to remove any remaining drugs in her system so all of the things Orochimaru did should stop. She'll start aging at a normal rate and her chakra will only increase when it's supposed to," the red haired missing nin explains. "Now onto her arm. I'm not quite sure what exactly Orochimaru did but it's obvious the limb was pushed to its limit. I have a theory as to what Orochimaru might have been testing but why and how I'm not sure," Sasori says.

"And what is this theory?" Itachi asks.

"I believe he may have been testing the limits of her kekkei genkai. Her ability to alter and regrow her bones. He may have also been trying to see if there was a way to stop it. Obviously he found something because some of her bones were missing while others had tried to regrow but failed," Sasori explains. "There was nothing I could do to reverse the damage so I had no choice but to amputate it. Anyways all that's left to be done is wait and see if she wakes up."  
"What are the chances of that?" Itachi questions him.  
"At this point it's a 50/50 chance. It all depends on if she can recover from this," Sasori replies. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have things to do," he says and then walks away.

Itachi watches him go before going into the infirmary and taking over watching the girl.

* * *

Alright guys so I've decided that I'm going to update this story every Sunday. If I get far enough ahead in writing this I may even start doing two updates a week. As of right now I've got chapters 1 through 3 fully written and I'm currently working on chapter 4 and should have it done soon so yeah. Anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Leave a review and let me know what you think :) I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy this story cause I know I love it. Thanks for reading. Chapter three will be posted sometimes next Sunday.


	3. Chapter 3

The girl doesn't wake up for days. Itachi and Konan take turns watching over her but she has yet to show any signs of waking. Sasori has been back a couple times to check her over and her body does appear to be healing but the chances of her waking decrease with each passing day.

Pain has begun to grow impatient and after the 9th day he summons Itachi to his office. "I can't keep you hear any longer. I need you out there gathering information for me. We have a lead on where Orochimaru may be and I need you and Kisame to look into it," he tells the raven haired ninja.

"What would you like us to do if we do find him?" Itachi questions.  
"Nothing for now, just confirm his location and report back to me as soon as possible. Now go. Kisame should be waiting for you. I've already explained everything to him."

"Understood," Itachi says and then bows before leaving and going to meet up with Kisame.

Pain watches him go before turning to go out onto his balcony. He watches as paper butterflies begin to fly past him.

"I'll look over the girl," Konan says as she materializes behind the orange haired ninja.

"Why do you care so much for that child. You don't know her. For all we know she could be a danger to us all," Pain says, looking over at Konan for a second before turning his gaze to the sky.

"Someone has to," she says. "She's obviously lost her parents and been tortured by Orochimaru. No one deserves that."

"That may be true but we have no time to worry about a child. I mean can you imagine, a criminal organization taking care of a child," he asks with a bit of a chuckle.

"Well what are we going to do with here then? Just leave her somewhere to fend for herself and hope she survives?" Konan asks.

"We managed to do it."

"You know as well as I do we wouldn't have made it much longer if Jiraiya hadn't found us and trained us. We'd all be dead right now," She snaps a bit.

"Konan we are not taking care of that child. That is final. You are welcome to figure out what we're going to do with her, but she can't stay here," Pain snaps at her.

"When did you become so cold Nagato?" She asks.

"Do not utter that name here ever again!" Pain exclaims and turns to glare at her.

Konan flinches. "My apologies… Pain. I'll leave you alone now," She says and then goes into the base and away from the other ninja.

* * *

Itachi and Kisame quickly make their way to the place Pain had told them about. It was only a couple hours from the rain village so the trip was relatively quick compared to others they've made in the past.

"So I heard you brought a little girl back with you when you were supposed to raid Orochimaru's base," Kisame says as they walk through the forest towards their destination.

"Yes, I'm sure everyone has heard by now. What about it?" Itachi asks his partner.

"I just want to know why," Kisame replies. "It's not like you to go against orders. If I didn't know better I'd think you'd gone soft Itachi."

"I have my reasons Kisame. Believe me I have not gone soft," Itachi says.

"I hear that she posses the Sharingan. Is it true?" the shark like ninja questions.

"She did, yes. But she can't use it anymore," Itachi answer calmly.

"I thought you'd killed your whole clan. Was there another survivor besides your baby brother?" Kisame ask curiously.

"No, she's only three. She wasn't even alive back then," the Uchiha answers.

"Then where did she come from? Don't tell me you have some secret family that we don't know about," Kisame jokes.

Itachi looks at him when he says this. "No I don't. What are you trying to say Kisame?"

"Well I saw her the other day and she does look a bit like you. You ever have a one night stand while out on a mission? Every man gets those urges now and again, even you can't deny that."

"I've never done that," Itachi says. "We need to move faster."

Kisame watches as the younger ninja begins to run and smirks a bit. However, he says nothing and just follows the Uchiha.

* * *

After finding out that Orochimaru was not where the lead said he would be, Itachi and Kisame report to Pain before returning to their rooms to get some much needed rest. It had been a tiring journey for the both of them and it was disappointing when they found nothing.

On their way to the living quarters they are stopped by Konan who appears to have been waiting for them. "She woke up while you were away. Sasori is with her now. Once he's done you're welcome to see her." She tells Itachi.

Kisame listens to the conversation curiously.

"Thank you for informing me Konan. I'll be there as soon as I can be," Itachi says.

Konan nods. "Alright. I'll be reporting to Pain then," she says and then disappears quickly as she turns into bits of paper and flies past them down the dark hallway.

"Well I suppose I'll let you do what you need to do then," Kisame says before walking a little farther down the hallway and going into his room.

Itachi watches him go before going down the hall and taking a left into another hallway where he enters the first room on the right.

Once inside the room he removes his cloak and puts it on the back of his chair by his desk in the corner of the room. He sighs and removes the hair tie from his hair and runs his fingers through it to untangle it a little. He sits in his chair and removes the pouches with his ninja tools, setting them aside on his desk to be sorted through later. He was tired but he couldn't sleep just yet. He needed to talk to that girl. Hopefully he'd be able to find some answers to the many questions that were going through his head.

After brushing his hair a little with his fingers and changing into a regular black shirt and pants, he puts his hair back in a pony tail. Then with that all taken care of he leaves his room and heads for the infirmary to see the girl.

Upon arriving there Itachi sees Konan waiting outside the infirmary. "Sasori's still in there with her but he said that we could come in when you got here," she tells him and then opens the door and goes inside.

Itachi follows her inside and goes over to the cot that the orange hair girl is laying on. Her eyes are now open and she's looking around very confused. "How is she?" Itachi asks the red haired man who, for once, isn't hiding inside his puppet.

It's very rare for anyone to see Sasori outside of Hiruko so Itachi is a bit shocked by this at first. However then his attention is brought back to the girl as Sasori begins to speak.

"She's doing much better than I anticipated. Everything appears to be normal and her wounds are healing nicely. She's been talking a little but I can't get much information out of her."  
Itachi looks at the girl who seems to be afraid and confused right now.

"Where's the snake man?" she asks in a quiet voice. "and my brother. where's my brother?"

"That man is gone," Itachi tells her. "What's your name?" He asks after he sees her relax a little bit.

"T-tora," she stutters. "Why can't I see you? Where am I?" She asks.

"Her speech patterns are very advanced for a child her again," Sasori notes as he writes something down. "Anyways, you can't see because your eyes no longer work. You sustained severe injuries specifically to the eyes because of Orochimaru, or as you called him, the snake man," Sasori explains to the girl with no hint of emotion in his voice.

Tora looks confused. She didn't understand a lot of what he had just said. There were a lot of big words there and she wasn't sure what all of them meant. "My eyes don't work anymore?" she asks to confirm what he had just told her.

Sasori sighs in annoyance he'd never had any patience for children. "no they don't."

The girl frowns at that. "So this is gone and my eyes don't work…" she says and puts her hand on the bandaged stump where the rest of her arm should be but isn't.

"Correct. Don't make me repeat myself. I hate repeating myself. It wastes time," Sasori says, clearly annoyed at this point.

"Tora, do you think you can answer a couple question for us?" Konan asks her while kneeling beside the cot so she's level with the girl, even if she can't see her.

"Ok…" she says quietly.

"Do you know of a boy named Sasuke Uchiha?" Itachi asks.

Tora shakes her head.

"What about your parents? Do you know who they are?"

Tora once again shakes her head. "Mommy's dead and Daddy left," she tells him.

Itachi frowns a bit. "You mentioned that you have a brother. Do you know his name?" he asks.

"Kimimaro," she answers.

"That's all I have for questions. Thank you," he says and then turns to leave.

Sasori and Konan watch the Uchiha head for the door, making no move to stop him.

"I'll have to report this to Pain," Konan says once he's gone.

Tora sits there, still a bit afraid and confused by what's going on but says nothing.

Sasori nod. "Alright I'm going to finish up her but after that I have some business to attend to."

Konan nods and then quickly goes to speak with Pain.

* * *

"So she's awake?" Pain asks Zetsu when he comes up through the floor of his office.

"She is," the black half answers.

The white half grins and says, "and her name is Tora."

"Is that all we know?" Pain asks the two.

They shake their head. "No. It would appear that she is a Kaguya. She's the brother of Kimimaro Kaguya, the boy who was supposedly the sole survivor of the massacre of his clan. He's the one Orochimaru picked up awhile back," the black half explains.

"Alright, you are dismissed," Pain says and with that Zetsu bows and slowly leaves the way he came.

"A Kaguya and an Uchiha. Very interesting," Pain says once Zetsu is gone.

A man with a mask comes out from the dark corner of Pain's office. "Very interesting indeed," he says with a slight chuckle.

* * *

Welp that was chapter three of Tora's Story. Hmm that's a good title name XD better than my current one anyways. I think I'm gonna change it to that right now.

Anyways I hope you guys liked this chapter. Please leave a review and let me know what you think so far :) Chapter 4 will be up next sunday.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm so sorry for not having updated recently. Life's been real stressful lately and I have had much inspiration to write more of this but I just finished reading all of Naruto the other day and I've been itching to write more. So here's the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

A week goes by without hearing from Itachi, he hasn't even come to visit Tora since the day she woke up. Shortly after he'd left the infirmary Zetsu had come to tell Sasori that Itachi had left on personal business. He hadn't said when he would be back and Tora had been asking about him. Itachi was supposed to be taking care of the girl, not Sasori and his patients was wearing thin.

"I'm hungry," the girl says as she sits up on her bed.

Sasori is sitting at his desk tinkering with the arm of his latest work. It was really just something he was doing out of boredom. Most of his time during the past week had been spent taking care of the girl. Sometimes Konan would come and let him take a break but that would usually only be for an hour or two. He just wanted to go to his room and continue with his work in silence there, but someone had to keep an eye on the girl and make sure she didn't do something dumb and get herself killed somehow.

Looking over at the girl Sasori sighs in annoyance but gets up and grabs her something from the fridge. He then walks over to her and hands her an apple. "Here, eat this," he says and then returns to his desk.

Tora takes a bite out of the apple. "Thank you," she says happily and continues to eat the apple. After a couple minutes of quiet with only the sounds of her chewing and Sasori working on his puppet Tora asks, "Why don't you ever eat anything?" She'd spent all this time with the quiet man and not once had she heard him eating or even mention needing to.

"I don't need to," Sasori says.

"But everyone needs to eat," she says, sounding confused.

"Well I don't need to. Just eat your apple," Sasori says and keeps working on his puppet.

Tora frown but goes quite and finishes the apple. Once she's done with it. She fumbles around a bit to find the table and put the core on it.

Sasori twitches a bit at the sound of glass breaking from behind him. "Itachi better be back soon. I shouldn't have to deal with this," he mutters as he gets up and goes to see what she broke this time.

"I'm sorry… I didn't mean to break something," Tora says, sounding a bit upset.

Sasori sighs, but says nothing as he picks up the shards of glass from the cup she knocked over.

"A-are you mad?" she asks.

"No, I'm annoyed," he answers.

"I'm sorry," she says again and hugs her legs to her chest with her one good arm.

He glances over at her before throwing the glass out into a nearby trash can. Once that's done he looks over at her again. He goes back over to her and grabs her bad arm.

Tora jumps a bit in surprise and winces in pain. His grip was a bit tight and her arm a wasn't fully healed yet. "What are you doing?" she asks him.

"Shut up brat," he says and then removes the bandages on her arm. He had healed what he could when he'd originally amputated her arm. However, the rest had to heal on it's own and it was doing ok but it was healing a lot slower than Sasori had anticipated. He frowns and then takes some measurements from both her arms. Once that's done he rebandages the wound and returns to project.

Tora sits there in silence for what seems like forever and then suddenly she hears the door to the infirmary open and someone walks in.

Konan enters the infirmary. "Alright Sasori, you are free to go. I can take over now." She says.

Sasori quickly gathers his things and gets up. "It's about time. This is supposed to be Itachi's job," he says as he walks towards the door.

Konan grabs him by the arm to stop him from leaving. "We just heard from Itachi. He'll be back tomorrow morning," she tells him.

Sasori looks at her. "It's about time. Where the hell has he been?"

She shrugs. "He hasn't told us. He did say that he wanted to speak with you when he got back."

"Well I'll be in my room with my work so just send him to me when he gets back," Sasori replies and then leaves the room to return to his own room.

Konan then smile a little as she turns her attention towards Tora. "Would you like to hear a story?" she asks her as she takes a seat on the stool that's set up next to the bed.

Tora smiles, glad that the mean man is gone and that the nice lady has come back. "Yeah! I don't look that other guy. He's mean," she says.

Konan laughs. "He's just impatient is all. He gets grumpy when people keep him waiting," she says. "Now then, let's see. How about I tell you a story about a boy named Nagato."

* * *

Pain is waiting for Itachi at the entrance upon his return. He looks furious and he is indeed furious. "Where the hell have you been?" He demands when the Uchiha enters the base. "You can't just disappear on us like that. We need you out there and working."

Itachi bows, "My apologies. I didn't think I would be gone for so long. I ran into a bit of a complication that needed to be dealt with while I was out."

"What were you doing anyways? You still haven't told me," Pain says.

"I was looking into something involving the girl. Tora. I believe she may be my daughter," Itachi replies.

Pain's eyes go wide. "Your daughter?" He questions  
"I'm going to have Sasori perform a blood test but i'm about 90% sure that she's my daughter."

"And what will you do if it comes back positive?" Pain questions, narrowing his eyes a bit and curiously waiting for a response.

"Well with your permission of course, I would like to raise her here. I'll still be completely loyal to the Akatsuki and I won't let her get in the way of our work," Itachi says.

"I'll think about it after we get the blood test back," he replies.

Itachi nods and says, "I appreciate it." Then he goes to talk to Sasori.

* * *

"I'm done watching that girl. She's your responsibility now," Sasori says as he draws blood from Itachi's arm.

"I did not intend for you to have to watch over her for so long. I ran into a bit of a complication while I was out," Itachi replies.

"I don't care what happened. I'll check on her everyone now and then but i'm done watching her," he says and then pulls the needle out of Itachi's arm. He sets the tube of blood aside and then heals the wound. Once that's done he wipes off the little bit of blood that's there and then puts the blood over on his desk for later. "So just a blood test to determine whether or not you're her father right?" Sasori asks.

"Yes, that's all I need," Itachi says.  
"Alright. Once I get her blood it'll take me a couple days to get results so you'll have to wait."

"Alright. Thank you. how is Tora doing anyways?" Itachi asks Sasori.

"She's healing slower than I anticipated but she'll be fine after some time," he replies. "Now if you'll excuse me I need to go take some blood from the brat as well."

Itachi nods and then leaves. "I'll let you do that then," he says as he walks out of Sasori's room.

* * *

Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoyed it please leave a review to let me know what you think. I'll post the next chapter as soon as I can. Classes are starting back up next Tuesday for me so I don't know when I'll finish it, but when I do I will post it as soon as I can.


	5. Chapter 5

Alright so here's chapter 5 I finished it sooner than I thought I would so I decided to upload it now. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for the reviews.

* * *

Tora sits up on on her cot in the infirmary scratching random lines into the wooden table next to her with a piece of sharpened bone jutting out from the tip of her finger.

She sighs. Everything is always so boring around here. Well except for when the nice lady called Konan comes around. She always has great stories to tell Tora.

Suddenly Tora hears the door to the room open. She hears very light footsteps as someone quietly enters the room. "wh-who's there?" she stutters, not liking the feeling she's getting from the person who just entered the room.

"I see you are awake little one," a deep voice says with a chuckle.

"Who are you?" She asks, obviously afraid of the unknown man. She points her fingers at him, her arm shaking a bit. Bone slowly comes out of the tips of her fingers as she gets ready to defend herself.

The man chuckles once again and then suddenly Tora feels her hand being bent back at a painful angle. "Didn't anyone ever teach you that it isn't polite to point at others?" He asks.

Tora feels him get closer to her hand, as if he's inspecting it.

"So this is the Shikotsumyaku," the man says as he touches one of the bones protruding from Tora's finger and keeps her from attacking him.

Tora whimpers and tries to get away from him but she can't even move.

"I've heard stories about it but I've never actually seen it in person," he says almost sounding as if he's in awe. The man let's go of her hand and says ,"You will definitely be an asset to me."  
"Wha-" Tora starts to ask but is cut off by the feeling of a light tap on her forehead and she falls back on to the cot. She hears the man say something but everything around her goes quickly goes quiet as she slips into a deep sleep

* * *

Sasori sits at his desk working quietly on one of his puppets as usual. The results of the blood test are next to him seeing as he just finished it. Now he was relaxing a little bit before going to report his findings to Itachi.

However his work is interrupted by a sudden knock on his door. A frown appears on his face as he sets down the head of his puppet and gets up. Who could that possibly be? Itachi couldn't be that impatient could he? Sasori had finished the test much faster than he had told Itachi he would so it wasn't like he was keeping the other man waiting. It wasn't expected to be done for at least another day.

He sighs as he goes to the door and opens it. To his surprise it isn't Itachi at the door, but Pain who obviously means business right now. What could he possibly want? Sasori wasn't due a mission for a couple more days. He needed time to prepare his puppets before going out on another mission.

"Have you finished the blood test that Itachi asked you to do?" Pain asks the puppet master.

Sasori blinks in surprise. However he isn't that surprised because Pain always finds things out one way or another. Itachi or Zetsu had probably told the orange haired man about it. "Yes, I just finished it. It's positive, that girl is definitely Itachi's daughter," Sasori replies.

Pain nods and Sasori can see him start to go deep into thought. "Alright, thank you for the information," he says and then turns and walks away without another word. Sasori watches him go and then just goes back into his room, closing the door behind him. He walks back over to his work bench. "What has Itachi gotten himself into?" He asks himself as he picks up one of the needles waiting to be dipped in poison and inspects it. It wasn't that he cared, but he had a feeling this girl was going to cause all sorts of trouble.

* * *

Pain walks down the hall of the base, quickly heading to his office. He wasn't sure what to do about this child. They couldn't just keep her and raise her here. It was no place for a child. She'd just end up getting killed one way or another. Even worse, one of the other villages could capture her and torture her for information. It would just cause them more problems than they already had and the girl didn't deserve a life like this.

Upon entering his office he sees Madara leaning against the wall, wearing his usually swirled orange mask. His arms are crossed and it looks like he was waiting for Pain to return.

"You will let Itachi keep the girl," he says upon seeing Pain enter the room.  
Pain frowns and closes the door behind him. It was if the man had read his mind. Zetsu must have been listening in on his conversation with Sasori and had told the other man about the test results. "A child has no place in this organization," Pain says.

"With some training she could become an asset to this organization. Just think, a Kaguya and an Uchiha. She has great potential, I can tell. Just look at who her father is," Madara explains.

"I know I agreed to work with you so we could reach our goal but I refuse to involve a child in our work," Pain replies, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes to glare at the other man. Just what exactly was he planning?

"She can greatly increase our chances of success. Such a rare kekkei genkai shouldn't go to waste. We don't want it falling into the wrong hands. It could prove to be a problem during the later stages of our plan," he says.

Pain frowns. The other man had a point. Not only could one of the other villages end up using her against them, they could also treat her the way Orochimaru did. Maybe she would be safer with them. "Fine, I'll let her stay, but she will not be used for anything dangerous and we will keep her from getting too involved in our work," Pain answers finally.

Madara smirks under his mask, "Excellent, now that that's settled. I have some information that might interest you.

* * *

Itachi enters the infirmary and sees that Tora is sleeping peacefully just like Sasori had said she was when he had checked on her just a little while ago.

He quietly approaches the cot and sits in the chair next to it, not wanting to wake her. It was hard to believe that she was his daughter. Children had never been part of his plan. This development definitely put a wrench in his plans. He can't just abandon the girl, especially since he had the chance to do things right with her. He wished he'd had that chance with Sasuke but his duty to the village had come first and he had done what was necessary to protect his little brother. But maybe this time he could actually be there for Tora. With that thought he smiles and brushes some stray hairs out of her face as he watches her sleep. Yeah, that would be nice.

* * *

Sorry it was kinda short compared to some of the other chapters. This is just how it turned out though. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review to let me know what you think.


	6. Chapter 6

Hey guys sorry about the wait for this chapter. Haven't felt like writing much. Life's been kinda hectic recently. I dropped out of college right as I was about to start back up and I've had a couple major anxiety attacks. The most recent one is actually the reason that this chapter currently exists. I needed a distraction towards the end of it yesterday and just started writing. So yeah here it is. Enjoy :D

Edit: Just fixed the chapter so that Tora only has one arm. It's been awhile since I've worked on this so I forgot about that detail as I was writing. Sorry about that.

* * *

Itachi watches as Tora runs out of his room to go play out in the hallway. It's been two weeks since Sasori had said that she could leave the infirmary. So far she's managed to stay out of everyone's way and not cause any trouble.

Everyone knew that she was here now. They'd held a meeting when she was almost ready to leave the infirmary to inform everyone so that they didn't end up attacking her if they happened to see her around the base. Not that she ever goes to any other part of the base.

Itachi has limited her to his room and the hallway right outside her room and so far she hasn't gone off exploring, not that she would get very far anyways. With her limited eye sight she's had some trouble getting around and has only just started to get used to the layout of Itachi's room and the hallways outside.

It was nice to see her so happy though. At first she'd been afraid. Anyone would be in an unfamiliar place they can't see. Now she was pretty used to the place though. They'd even managed to get another bed in Itachi's room so that Itachi could stop sleeping on the floor. He hadn't minded though. The floor was surprisingly comfortable, at least he thought so.

Konan had also been paying Tora some visits every now and then when she wasn't out working. She had become an important part of Tora's life during her time recovering from her injuries. It was pretty obvious that Tora saw her as a motherly figure, which Itachi appreciated. That meant that he'd have someone who could watch over Tora while he was away on missions, as long as she wasn't out too of course. Konan was glad to do it too. She'd quickly taken a liking to Tora and Itachi had no problem with that. He'd seen nothing to prove that Konan was a threat to him or Tora and Pain clearly wasn't putting her up to this, though he wouldn't have been surprised if he had.

Getting up off his bed, Itachi stretched a bit before heading over to his window. As he looked out the window he spotted a bird flying in circling a nearby tree. He activated his sharingan and continued to watch it. He could see that something was tied to it's leg and it had a symbol on it that he recognized immediately.

He quickly goes over to his desk, deactivating his sharingan and grabbing a pony tail to tie his hair back with. Once that's done he grabs his tool pouch. He puts the pouch on and then heads over to the door leading out of his room. He quickly puts on his shoes and cloak before stepping out in to the hallway.

As he exits his room, he's just in time to see Tora accidentally embedding her bone sword into Sasori's leg. The other man twitches and glares down at the girl.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" he asks, clearly very annoyed.

Tora looks afraid, but also confused by the reaction from Sasori. She wasn't surprised that he was mad but she didn't understand why he wasn't in pain. It felt like she'd hit a piece of wood with her sword. She quickly pulls it out of his leg and moves away. "Sorry…" she says quietly as she tips her head down. "I was just playing…"

"Just playing my ass," Sasori snaps. "If you'd hit anyone else with that, they'd be severely injured. It's not a toy."  
Itachi quickly intervenes. "My apologies Sasori, I should have been keeping a better eye on her."

"Make sure it doesn't happen again," Sasori advised, sounding rather irritated as he walked away from the two Uchihas.

Itachi sighs and looks at Tora who looks upset now. He goes over to her and taps her forehead with two of his fingers. "Hey, don't look so sad. Sasori's always like that," he tells her when she lifts her head to acknowledge him.

She smiles a little at that and nods.

"But he is right, you do need to be more careful with that sword of yours. It's not a toy."

She frowns, "but it's fun to play with."

"I know it is, but you shouldn't play with a dangerous weapon. You could really hurt someone, especially since you can't see them coming. What if that had been Konan or me?" he asks her.

She nods a bit and returns to bone to the part of her shoulder it came out of. "What can I play with then if I can't play with my bones?" she questions.

Itachi thinks for a second before making a decision. "Why don't you come with me. I've got some errands to run and then we can go into town and see if there's any toys that you like," he says.

She grins and nods excitedly, "yeah, I wanna go out!"  
He smiles the slightest bit and then leads her back into his room. "Alright get your shoes on then," he says as he gets her shoes for her and hands them to her. He then watches as she excitedly puts them on before they head out.

* * *

"Hey Tora why don't you go look at those flowers to your left. I need to take a break for a second," Itachi says to her as he sits on a rock and waits for the bird to land.

Tora happily turns to face the flowers and picks a couple of them as she feels all the different flowers around her.

Shortly after sitting down the bird lands on his knee and he takes the scroll from it's leg. He uses his chakra to make it bigger before opening it.

Tora hears the bird land and the sound of a scroll being opened and turns toward the sound curiously. "What's that?" she asks.

"It's nothing important," Itachi tells her. "Just a stray bird with a scroll," he lies.

He quickly reads the contents of the scroll before burning it and writing back a coded response as quickly as possible. Once he's done he shrinks the scroll and ties it to the bird's leg before sending it off, back to where it came from.

With that done, he looks over at Tora who has a bunch of different flowers in her hand and is still picking more. He goes over to her. "Ready to go?" he asks her.

"Yep," She says and then stands up and turns toward him.

He takes the flowers from her and then takes her hand in his and begins to walk towards town once more.

"I'm gonna give these flowers to Konan," Tora says with a grin on her face.

"I'm sure she'll like that," Itachi says as they continue to walk.

—-

After walking for what seems like forever to Tora they arrive in town. She can tell because of all the sounds and smells around her. It was a bit overwhelming. There were a lot of people, all talking at once and there were so many different smells she wasn't sure what was coming from where. She holds onto Itachi's hand tighter, causing the man to look down at her.

"Are you alright?" he asks her.

She nods and continues to walk with him.

They go into a couple different stores before Itachi pauses upon seeing a bunch of different stuffed animals. on a display table in the shop that they were currently in. He picks up a stuffed cat and hands it to her. "how about a stuffed cat?" he asks her.

She takes the cat and feels it a bit and smiles a little. "It's soft," she says.

"Yes it is," he says. "Do you want it?" He asks again.

She thinks for a second before dropping the cat, standing on her toes and feeling the other stuffed animals on the table. She pulls one out of the pile, causing a small avalanche of stuffed animals that Itachi quickly picks up before the shop keeper notices the mess.

Tora holds up a stuffed tiger. "What's this one," she asks Itachi.

"That's a tiger," he replies and takes it from her. "You want this one?"  
She nods and grins. "Yeah!"

He smiles. "Alright, let's go then," he says and heads to the counter holding Tora's hand in one hand and the tiger in the other along with the flowers.

After paying for the stuffed animal they make their way back to the base.

* * *

After about ten minutes of walking Itachi notices Tora yawn and how she starts to walk a little slower.

He stops, puts the flowers and stuffed tiger in a storage scroll, kneels down in front of her with his back to her and his arms held out behind him. "Climb on my back, I'm right in front of you," he says.

Tora nods a bit and steps forward with her arm out to feel around for him. Her hand touches his back and she moves closer and climbs on, wrapping her arm around his neck.

By the time they get back to the base. Tora is fast asleep. Itachi brings her to is room and lays her down on her bed once they get there. He carefully takes off her shoes and puts the stuffed tiger next to her in bed before pulling the blankets over her.

Once that's done he takes off his cloak and hangs it on the hook by the door before removing his shoes and going over to his desk. He takes a seat in his chair and pulls out a small booklet from a hidden compartment in the drawer of his desk. He opens it up to a fresh page and begins to write.

He writes a lot. Much more than usual, though it had been months since the last time he'd written in his book. There was a lot to tell.

When he finally finishes writing he closes the book and sets aside his pen and leans back in the chair. He looks over at Tora, who has curled up into a ball under the blankets. Watching her, he wished he could sleep that peacefully at night.


	7. Chapter 7

Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it. Some new developments, as well as a little bonding time between Tora and Sasori. Now it's time for me to start working on the next one before going out with some friends tonight. Leave a review to let me know what you think.

* * *

The days passed relatively quickly now with Tora around. The next thing Itachi knew, five months had gone by. Before the time had seemed to drag on. He had mindlessly completed missions for the Akatsuki. It wasn't anything interesting. Just work. It kept him busy, but there was always the couple days of down time after each mission to recover. It wasn't like he had much else to do, aside from gathering intel for the leaf village. The days had passed by rather slowly with not much to do on his down time. It was nice to have something to distract him from his thoughts.

It was also hard too. It wasn't like spending time with sasuke. He actually had to care for Tora. He had to take care of her. She was his child, which is a very different thing from just being a sibling. There were times where it was just like being with Sasuke but most of the time it was very different. He had to make sure that she ate her food, bathe her, clean up after her, and he had to teach her. There's a lot to teach a child, especially one who's almost entirely blind.

She was doing really well with places that she knew, but when she was in a new and unknown location she would constantly trip on things or bump into them. Itachi felt terrible as he watched her get frustrated when this happened. He wished there was a way to help her get around better. He'd been trying to think of a way but he was clueless.

Konan rounds the corner of the hallway and approaches Itachi, breaking him out of his thoughts upon seeing her. He looks up at her from his spot on the floor that he's been watching Tora from and nods a bit. "Konan," he says and returns his attention to Tora.

"Itachi," she says. "I think I may have thought of something that could help Tora get around better," she tells him and kneels down on the ground next to him and watches as the orange haired girl plays with her stuffed tiger, running around the hallway and occasionally hiding behind imaginary objects from some creature.

His eyes don't move, but there's a small twitch of emotion on his face for a split second that indicates his interest.

"Maybe she could use her chakra to sense the things around her," Konan says.

Itachi thinks about that for a second. "I hadn't thought of that. It's definitely a possibility. After all chakra can be used to detect other living beings. I don't see why it couldn't be used to detect object in the surrounding area," he says, still watching Tora as she rolls behind something only she can see.

"She's already very good at manipulating her chakra. She can use her kekkei genkai with no problems at all. With some practice, I think it could work," Konan replies.

"I'll start practicing it with her after my next mission."

"Right, you leave tomorrow correct?" she asks him to which he nods. "I won't be able to watch her while you're gone. I have my own work that I need to attend to."

"I suppose I'll have to leave her with Sasori then," Itachi muses.

"He won't be happy about that," Konan says.

"Well he'll have to deal with it. I don't trust Kakuzu or Zetsu with her. Kakuzu would end up killing her and Zetsu would probably eat her," Itachi says.

Konan nods and then gets up. "Well I'll be back in a couple days," she says and then walks away.

Itachi nods and then gets up. "Come on Tora, it's time to eat," he tells her.

She grins and runs over to him. "What are we having?" she asks excitedly.

Itachi thinks for a second and then says, "how about some curry?"

She nods, "yeah!"

He then takes her hand and heads to the kitchen with her. They walk down the many confusing hallways of the Akatsuki base before getting there. Once in there he picks her up and sits her on a stool by the counter while he looks in the fridge for the curry that konan had made Tora the other day. It was her favorite food currently and something he'd have to learn how to make. He could cook but he didn't do it that often. He usually ate whatever he could find either in the kitchen or he went out.

Taking the curry out of the fridge he bring it over to the stove and puts it in a pan before turning the stove on. He reheats the curry over the stove and then puts it on a plate for Tora. He sets the plate down in front of her and hands her a fork. "There you go," he says and adds, "It's right in front of you."

She grins and happily begins to eat the curry after making sure of it's location.

As Itachi is getting himself his own dinner, Kakuzu enters the kitchen. He looks over at the girl happily eating at the counter before ignoring her and grabbing something out of the fridge once Itachi is out of the way.

"I still think a child shouldn't be here," he says to Itachi as he closes the fridge door. "Not only is it a nuisance but it's also a complete waste of valuable money."  
"I haven't touched any of the organizations money when buying things for her. It's all come out of my own pocket. So you don't need to worry about the money," Itachi explains. "She isn't causing any problems. She's safer here than all on her own at there."

Kakuzu watches the older Uchiha for a second before just walking out of the kitchen with the food he took out of the fridge.

Once he's gone Tora asks, "Who was that?" She sounds curious more than anything else.

"That was Kakuzu. He's another member of the Akatsuki," Itachi tells her as he sits next to her and eats his own food.

She nods a bit. "Ka-ku-zu," she says, sounding out the name.

Itachi nods. "That's right."

"Does he not like me?" she asks, clearly having picked up on that through the conversation that just happened.

"He doesn't really like anyone," Itachi says.

She giggles a little at that. "He sounded like a grumpy old man," she says.

Itachi smiles a little at that. "Well you're not wrong about that, but don't let him hear you say that."

She smiles and nods before returning her attention to the meal in front of her.

* * *

The next day Itachi ends up leaving Tora with Sasori just as he had said he would. Neither of the two are happy about it.

Tora is sitting in a chair in the red heads room, completely bored out of her mind. He'd told her not to bother him while he was working which he was based on the sounds she heard of him tinkering with his work, whatever that is. She didn't want to piss him off anymore than he already was but she wanted to do something. Anything would be better than just sitting in a chair with nothing but a stuffed tiger and almost complete silence.

Sasori works quietly at his desk like he always does during his down time. He always had a project going. Sometimes he even had more than one going at the same time and he'd work on whatever one he felt like at the time. It depended on his mood really.

Tora sighs and plays with one of the paws of her tiger and mumbles, "I'm bored," more to herself than anyone else but it's loud enough for Sasori to hear her in the quiet of the room.

"I don't care if you're bored. You're just here so that you don't get into any trouble around here," he tells her, not even looking away from his work. He sounds as annoyed as he always does, maybe a little more so than usual though considering the circumstances.

She looks in the direction she hears his voice coming from. "But I wanna do something," she says and then adds, "'tachi let's me play in his room all the time."

"Well I'm not Itachi. I don't want you making a mess and breaking my stuff," the red head replies and then curses as the sound of wood breaking is heard. "Damn it. Look at what you made me do," he hisses through gritted teeth.

Tora frowns and returns to just sitting in the chair. She hears Sasori get up and get something before he returns to where he was before. After some more silence she asks, "what are you working on?"

Sasori pauses in his work, surprised by the question. No one asked him about his work. People either didn't care or thought he was crazy. Of course the girl doesn't know what his work even is yet so there's still the chance of her thinking he's crazy. After a couple seconds of silence he answers her, "I'm making a puppet."

"A puppet?" she asks. "What's that?"

He sighs in annoyance. "You're telling me you don't even know what a puppet is? What is Itachi teaching you?" he mutters, the second part more to himself than her. He looks over at her and then sigh this time not sounding quite as annoyed. "Come over here, I'll show you."  
She smiles a little at the idea of actually having something to do, but she's a little skeptical of Sasori. After all, he's never been very nice to her. She gets up and walks over to where she heard his voice coming from. However, on the way over she trips on the leg of a table that she doesn't know is there. This is the first time she's ever even been in Sasori's room. She starts to cry as she sits up.

Sasori get's up and goes over to her and picks her up. "Don't cry, you're fine," he says as he carries her over to his work bench where he sits her down. "You're a ninja. Ninja don't cry about silly little things like that."

She sniffles and wipes at her eyes with her one hand and nods a bit. "Sorry…" she says, sounding upset still.

"Stop apologizing. There's no reason to," he says.

"But you're mad at me…"

"I'm not made I'm annoyed," he tells her. "There's a difference." He then picks up the head of a puppet he's working on and holds it out to her. "Now, what I'm holding here, is part of a puppet I'm working on."

She reaches out to touch it. "It feels weird," she says. "What does it do?" she asks him, having completely forgotten about tripping just a couple minutes ago.

He pulls away the head and set's it back down on the table. "They're used to fight. You use your chakra to create little threads from your fingers to different parts of the puppet to control it.

She tilts her head, looking confused. "How do you do that?" she asks curiously.

He thinks for a second before saying, "Hold out your hand for me." He waits until she holds it out and then holds his hand up and connects strings of chakra to the tips of her fingers.

Tora looks surprised when she feels his chakra connect to her fingers. "That feels weird," she says with a giggle as he controls her fingers with his chakra.

"I suppose it does if you're not the one doing it," he says and then cuts of the connection between their fingers.

"Teach me?"

"You want me to teach you how to use puppets?" he asks, sounding somewhat surprised.

She nods. "yeah."

He looks at her for a minute before nodding. "Alright, well, do you know how to focus your chakra?" he asks her.

Sasori then spends the next couple hours teaching Itachi's brat how to focus her chakra to her fingers to create the threads of chakra. By the time Tora starts to get tired she has a pretty good handle on it and can even attach them to one of his puppet's legs and move it around a bit.

She yawns and rubs one of her eyes with one hand. "Tired," she says.

"Then sleep," he says and gets up. "You can sleep in my bed, not like I use it much," he tells her and then picks her up and carries her over to the bed. He sets her down and begins to walk back to his desk.

"Tuck me in," she says.

"You're really pushing it brat," he says but comes back over and tucks her in.

She smiles at him and curls up on the blankets, "night night," she says as she closes her eyes.

Sasori just rolls his eyes and shuts the lights in the room off before returning to his desk. Once there, he turns on the lamp he has there and starts to work on a new project instead of one of the ones he has already started.


	8. Chapter 8

Yet Another chapter. I've really enjoyed writing these recently. I hope you enjoy reading them. Leave a review to let me know what you think. I look forward to reading them.

* * *

"Come on Tora, focus," Itachi says as he stands by a tree and watches her. She's standing in the center of the new area he picked out for her training today. There's a lot of different things around the two of them for her to detect with her chakra. It's the perfect place for her to practice. "Now tell me what you can see," he says.

Tora's eyes are closed as she focuses all her attention on allowing her chakra to flow around her to try and sense the things in the area. She frowns a bit as she tries to push it out a bit further. "Um… I'm not sure," she says. "Wait… I-I think… right there," she says, turning and pointing to something next to her. "There's a big rock?" she asks.

"Do you know that or are you asking me to give you the answer?" he asks in return.

She nods. "There's a big rock over there," she says, this time it's a statement rather than a question.

He nods and smiles the slightest bit, "Very good Tora. What else can you see?"

She turns to face another direction and walks forward.

Itachi watches her closely to see what she'll do next. She's walking right towards a tree. However just as she's about to walk into the tree she stops and puts a hand on it. "A tree here,"

Itachi nods. "Very good, you've made a lot of progress. Now I have one more test before you're done for today," he tells her.

She nods and turns to face him. "What is it?"

"Walk back to the base with me," he says and then adds "without holding my hand."

She grins and nods. "Ok."

He then begins to walk back to the base. She runs after him before falling in step beside him. Tora's grown quite a bit since Itachi and Sasori first found her. Before, she only came up to Itachi's thighs, and now she's a couple inches past his hips. The child was growing like a weed. Sometimes Itachi thought that maybe whatever Orochimaru had done to her was still in affect. But he also knew that kids grow like weeds once they reach a certain age. With her being almost five now she was really starting to grow. She of course looks to be around eight years old now because of what Orochimaru had done to her but her rate of growth was normal now. As normal as it could be that is since she already looks older than she is.

They manage to get all the way back to the base without Tora tripping once. That was a new record. They'd tried this a couple other times and each time she'd made it a little farther before needing him to lead her the rest of the way. Upon getting back he smiles. "Good job today," he tells her. "You're getting so much better at it. Soon enough you'll be able to do it all the time."

She grins and nods. "Can I go see Sasori now?" she asks. "He said that I should go see him as soon as I'm done with training cause he has something for me."

"He does?" Itachi questions. "Well I don't see why not. Go ahead," he says. "Can you get there by yourself?"  
She nods and runs off down the hall.

Itachi watches her go before heading to his room. He makes his way there quickly and upon entering the room he sees Kisame sitting at his desk. "Another mission?" he asks Kisame as he closes the door and takes off his cloak.

"Tomorrow, a recruitment mission," he replies. "Sasori's getting a new partner."

"They found someone?" he asks as he hangs up his cloak and pulls the pony tail out of his hair and tosses it on his desk and takes a sip from his container of water.

"They did. A real odd ball. I think he and Sasori are going to get along nicely," Kisame tells him and gets up out of the chair so Itachi can sit down.

"What's his name?"  
"Deidara. He's an S-ranked rouge ninja from Iwagakure."

"He's the one that stole one of their kinjutsu right?" Itachi asks.

"That's him. The kid shows some promise so we're recruiting him tomorrow. Pain also said that we can't take no as an answer," Kisame says and heads to the door.

"Alright. I'll meet you and Sasori outside the base tomorrow then," Itachi says as he opens his desk draw.

"See you then, and tell Tora I said hi," Kisame says and then leaves the room.

Itachi pulls out his journal once the door closes and starts a new entry.

* * *

"Sasori?" Tora calls as she walks into his room, not bothering to knock. "Where are you?" she asks when she can't get her chakra out far enough to figure out where he is. She's starting to get tired after using her chakra so much.

Suddenly the door behind Tora opens again and Sasori walks in. "Didn't you dad teach you not to walk into other people's room without knocking first?" he ask as he steps around her and heads over to his work bench.

"You're the one that said you wanted me to come here after training," Tora says as she follows him over to his work bench.

"I did but it was implied that you should knock and wait for me to answer," he says and then sits at his bench. "Sit" he orders as he organizes some things on his desk.

"What do you have for me?" she asks curiously and sits down next to him, straddling the bench so that she's facing him.

"Hold out your arm," he says as he turns to face her.

She holds out her good arm.

"No the other one," she frowns and looks rather confused but does so.

He takes it and inspects the stub before grabbing the arm he made and making a few adjustments. "This is gonna hurt, just suck it up and deal with it," he tells her and goes about attaching the arm to what's left of her arm.

She yelps in surprise and whimpers a bit in pain as he attaches something to what's left of her arm.

He works quietly and then after a little bit his moves away. "There, try moving it," he says.

She looks confused but moves her arm and to her surprise, she finds there's more than just half an arm there. "What?" she asks, sounding even more confused than she already was.

Sasori smirks a bit. "Like it?" he asks her.

"I have a whole arm…" she says and then grins and moves it around some more. "How?"

"I made you a puppet arm, but it looks just like a normal arm. No one will ever be able to tell the difference, unless you want me to add in some secret weapons," he explains as he cleans up his work station. "Just be careful with it, it'll take a little time to get used to it and have full control over it, but it's just like the real thing," he adds.

She nods a bit. "Thank you," she says with a grin and then hugs him excitedly. He immediately tenses up and looks down at her.

"Let. go," he says.

She quickly pulls away at that reaction. He sounded almost mad. "Sorry…"

"Just don't do it again," he says. "Now run along brat, I'm busy."

She frowns but gets up and heads for the door.

"Let me know if you have any issues with the arm," he adds as he hears her open the door.

"Ok, thanks," she says and then leaves the room.

* * *

Itachi is still at his desk writing when Tora enters the room. "Welcome back," he says as he pauses in his writing. "That didn't take very long, what did Sasori have for you?" he asks and then turns to look at her. His eyes widen when he sees her. Both of her arms are completely intact. He can see some of the scaring from where her stump is but then it disappears in a brand new appendage. "Y-your arm…" he says in shock.

Tora grins. "Sasori made it for me," she tells him happily.

"I can see that. Did you thank him?"

"Of course," she says and moves the new arm around. "It feels a little weird," she says and continues to move it around, trying to get used to it and also just enjoying the fact that she has a right arm again.

He nods and smiles a little bit. "Well it was very generous of him to do that. I'll have to thank him when I see him tomorrow."

"You're going to see him tomorrow?" she asks as she goes over to her bed and sits on it, after taking off her shoes.

"I'm going out on a mission with him and Kisame tomorrow. We shouldn't be gone more than three days. You'll be ok here by yourself right?" he asks her.

"I wanna go!" she exclaims.

He looks at her again. His attention had returned to writing in his journal, however it was brought back to Tora upon that exclamation.

"It's too dangerous for you," he tells her.

She pouts. "But I can fight and I'll have you, Kisame and Sasori to protect me," she whines a bit.

He frowns a bit, "I don't want you getting involved in my work. It's not safe for a child."

"Stop treating me like I'm a baby. I wanna go with you. I barely ever get to leave the base. And I can walk on my own now too," she argues and crosses her arms..

He thinks about it for a couple minutes which leads to Tora saying please over and over again the entire time he's trying to think. "Alright fine. You can come, but there will be ground rules."

"Yay!" She jumps up in excitement at his response.

"Sit down and listen," he says sternly.

She sits down but she's practically bouncing with excitement.

"You are to stay with either me, Sasori, or Kisame at all times. Don't go off on your own. You won't interfere with our mission. You let us take care of our business. You don't try to engage our target no matter what happens. Understand?" he asks after listing all of his rules for her.

She nods. "Crystal clear 'tachi," she tells him and grins.

"Good," he nods and then turns back to his journal. "I'll remind you again tomorrow morning. "We'll be getting up early, so I don't want to hear any complaining," he says and begins to write in his journal a bit more.

She just grins and lays back on her bed, extremely excited for her very first mission, even if she isn't allowed to help them. She'll at least get to see what a mission is like, which is good enough for her.


	9. Chapter 9

And yet another chapter. I'm on a roll. I'm really enjoying writing about Tora. I wish I'd done this a long time ago. Then again if I'd done this a long time ago it would have been worse than it is. I also want to apologize for any spelling errors and what not. I don't proofread my work so there's bound to be mistakes. Anyways, without further ado, here is chapter nine.

Disclaimer: The dialogue used during deidara's recruitment is not mine. I did not write it. It's from Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. For that matter none of the characters except Tora are mine. This world does not belong to me it belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I just realized I never really did a disclaimer so there it is.

* * *

The next morning Itachi wakes Tora up bright and early just as he said he would. She starts to complain about how tired she is, just as he expected she would. "What did I say about whining? You're the one that wants to go with us, unless you've changed your mind."

She jumps up at that and says, "No, I'm coming!" She then quickly grabs her clothes and runs into the bathroom to change.

Itachi watches her go before going over to his desk and quickly putting his hair back in a pony tail. Once that's done he makes sure his tools are all set and packed before getting some things together for Tora.

Tora comes out of the bathroom wearing an orange t-shirt with fishnet sleeves and a fishnet midriff. She's also wearing an orange skirt (like Ino's skirt in shippuden) over a pair of a slightly darker orange shorts that go down to her knees. She's also put on a pair of black sandals. "Ok I'm ready," she says.

Itachi looks at her and nods and then hands her a pouch to attach to the back of her skirt. "Take these, we've practiced a little with some of these weapons. You can have them just in case," he tells her and then puts his own pouch on before grabbing his cloak.

"What about breakfast?" she asks as she puts the pouch on.

"We'll eat later, take one of these for now. It'll stave off hunger and give you more energy," he says, giving her a military ration pill.

She nods and takes it.

Itachi takes his own after his cloak is on and then heads out of the room and to the base's exit. Tora quickly follows after him.

When they get there, Sasori and Kisame are already waiting.

"What's the brat doing here?" Sasori asks from inside Hiruko.

"I wanted to come. I won't get in the way, promise," she says with a grin, hiding the surprise caused by hearing how different Sasori's voice sounds from inside his puppet.

"Are you sure this is a good idea Itachi? We are dealing with an S-rank rouge ninja," Kisame says.

"It'll be fine. I've already gone over the rules with her, which are?" he asks, directing the question to Tora.

"Stay with you guys, don't go off alone. Don't get in the way. Don't attack the target," she says with a grin.

He nods rather surprised that she remembered all of it. "Very good," he says.

"You forgot a rule Itachi. Don't make me wait. I'm not slowing down just because of a little brat wanting to play ninja," Sasori says.

"I had no plans of going any slower," he replies.

Tora nods. "I can keep up," she says.

"Good, now let's go, we're already behind schedule," Sasori says before disappearing into the trees. Kisame follows after him.

Itachi looks at Tora. "We're going to be running through the trees. You can handle that right?" he asks her.

She nods, "Yep!"

"Good now let's go," he says and then quickly follows after Sasori and Kisame.

Tora quickly joins them. At first she has a little trouble keeping up. She's not used to moving so quickly, but after awhile she starts to get the hang of it.

They travel like that for hours before stopping to take a break. Tora isn't prepared for the sudden stop and ends up bumping into Kisame and falling back out of the tree and towards the ground. She screams in shock and fear as she plummets to the ground. She has nod idea how high up she is. She squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for the her body to slam into the ground, but that never happens. She opens her eyes and realizes she can feel Sasori's chakra threads holding her there in the air.

Sasori jumps down to the ground and brings Tora with him, dropping her not so gently on the ground, but much more gently than falling from the tree would have been. "Pay more attention to your surrounding. I won't catch you next to time," Sasori says.

"We'll take a short break before we get moving again," Itachi says as he and Kisame jump down from the tree to join the other two.

Tora nods and gets up. "Ok," she says and then goes and sits on a nearby rock.

Itachi goes over to her and hands her a sandwich that he'd brought for her.

She takes it and begins to eat. "Thank you," she says.

"Any time," he says and then goes to do a quick sweep of the area, before sitting down to eat.

The break is short, just as Itachi had said it would be. Tora really isn't quite ready to go yet, but she promised she wouldn't slow them down. Besides, she's not that tired. 'You can keep going,' she tells herself in her heads as she gets up and follows Sasori, Kisame and Itachi as they jump up into the trees again.

* * *

I takes them a day and a half to get to their destination. However their target doesn't seem very interested..

Kisame, Itachi and Sasori stand in front of him, waiting to see what he'll say. Tora is peering out from behind Itachi and using her chakra to see the man. She has a basic shape in her mind from what her chakra is telling her but other than that she doesn't know any other details of what he looks like. Now that she thinks about it, the only people that she kind of knows what they look like are Sasori and Itachi.

"The Akatsuki?" the man asks as he turns his attention back to his sculpture. "Sorry. But that really has nothing to do with me. The only thing I want to do is concentrate on my art, hmm!" he states as he looks over the sculpture, holding it up to the light to see it better.

Sasori looks up when he hears that, "Art?" he questions.

"The art I create with clay that I make myself. It can also explode," Deidara explains to the older man, still paying the ninja behind him no mind as he works. "And when it does, it makes its existence more sublime. And that's when it finally become true art!" He exclaims, holding out a finished spider. "Because art… is an explosion!" He declares and then sets his work down.

Itachi steps forwards, making Tora let go of his cloak. She steps a little closer to the other two when that happens. This guy they're here to get is weird. Itachi had told her a little bit about the mission during one of their few breaks. She knew that he was dangerous and that they were just there to bring him back as a new member of the akatsuki. She also knew that there was the chance that he would attack them, and if that were to happen, she was supposed to get out of there as fast as possible.

"That's enough," Itachi says to everyone there, knowing that the other two wouldn't be able to convince him. "I'll handle this."

Deidara turns to look at them again, intrigued by the Uchiha's sudden declaration. "What you wanna fight?" he asks.

Tora's eyes widen at that. Was Itachi going to fight this man. She looks at Kisame and sees that he doesn't look at all worried. How could he not be worried.

"Yes, and if I win, you'll become a member of the Akatsuki," Itachi states, taking no time at all to make the conditions of the fight clear.

Deidara frowns and gets up, turning to face the group. "Don't underestimate me… or my art, either! Hmm!" He says and then throws the spider he was working on directly at Itachi, who immediately jumps back to get out of the way and then it explodes.

Tora gasps as she watches this, no longer able to see Itachi.

Kisame smirks. "Oh don't worry Tora, Itachi's already won" he explains as they watch Deidara continue to fight, but now fighting nothing.

Itachi, stands waiting in the hole that Deidara had blown in the wall.

"How?" Tora asks, looking confused.

"Genjutsu," Kisame replies. "It's Itachi's specialty. He's been trapped in his genjutsu since he looked Itachi in the eyes," the blue man explains as they all wait for Deidara to come out of it.

"You're much better than I expected," he suddenly says, once again facing Itachi. "However…" Suddenly a giant centipede explodes out of the floor and wraps itself around, not Itachi but Deidara. "This is the end of you, hmm!" he exclaims as he makes a hand sign in preparation of detonating his clay creature.

Tora's eyes widen in shock as she saw that the man really was trapped in her dad's genjutsu. He had no idea what he was doing. "You're not going to let him blow himself up are you?" she asks.

"Of course he isn't. We need him alive." Sasori snaps a bit.

"Before you do anything, you should take a good look at yourself," Itachi suddenly says to the blonde.

Deidara frowns in confusion and then lowers his hand and looks down at himself slowly. His eyes widen as the genjutsu is under and he grunts as his creation tightens around him a bit. "Genjutsu!" he exclaims in surprise. "Since when?" he asks, not knowing how it happened.

Kisame chuckles and answers the artist, "Right from the beginning. When you first saw Itachi's Sharingan, you were already under his genjutsu."

Deidara's eyes widen and he looks around to find Itachi who is no longer in front of him since he was never there in the first place. Suddenly there's a blinding light that causes him to squint and look at the hole in the wall. He sees the silhouette of Itachi standing there and he turns to look at him. The expression on his face is one of aw as he looks into Itachi's activated sharingan, amazed that this man had bested him without even having to fight him. "This… is art…" he says in shock. His centipede then drops to the ground below him and he grabs his right eye, sounding as if he's in pain.

Itachi looks at the man and say, "You have lost this fight."

Deidara let's out a scream of frustration, knowing that he has no choice but to return with them.

Itachi looks at the others before returning his attention to Deidara. "As soon as you have your things together we'll leave," he says and hopes down from the hole to return to the others.

"I'll be waiting outside, don't keep me waiting too long. I hate waiting." Sasori says and then heads out of the building.

Tora looks up at Itachi as he stops in front of her. "Go out there with him and eat this too," he says as he hands her some more food that he packed for her. "We'll be leaving very soon," he adds.

She nods and takes the food before going outside and sitting down next to Sasori who is waiting at the bottom of the stairs that leads to the entrance.

He looks at her, "You're lucky that blonde is an idiot. I don't know why Itachi thought it was a good idea to bring a child with us," he mutters and looks away.

She frowns. "But I can fight too, I can help," she says. That's all she really wanted. She wanted to be able to do something other than sit around the base bored out of her mind while they're all out on missions.

"You're only five years old. You have a lot to learn before you're ready to go on a real mission," he says to her.

"But it's boring being at the base by myself all the time. There's nothing to do," she complains.

"What have I told you about whining?" he asks her, sounding annoyed as usual.

She pouts and just eats her food in silence.

Shortly after she finishes her food Kisame and Itachi come out of the building with a reluctant Deidara in tow.

"Ready to go kid?" Kisame asks Tora.

She nods and response and gets up. "yep!"

Deidara looks at her. He hadn't really payed much attention to her earlier but now he was rather intrigued. "Do you guys recruit kids or something?" he asks, trying to figure out why she's there with them.

"No," is all Itachi says in response. "We don't have time for conversation. We need to get moving," he says and then runs forward and jumps up into the trees. Kisame and Sasori follow after him. Tora follows them and Deidara does the same, watching the girl while he runs with the rest of them back to the Akatsuki base. If they didn't recruit kids then what the heck was she doing here with the rest of them. There was no way she could be a rouge ninja, let alone an S-rank at anything. She's too young and naive looking. She couldn't possibly be more than a genuine with the way she acted, but there was definitely something about her that was different. He wasn't sure what it was though. He supposed he would find out since he had no choice but to be part of this dumb organization.


	10. Chapter 10

Here is chapter 10. It's a little shorter than my previous chapters, but that's ok. There's still so much more to be written before I'm anywhere near done with this story though I do have an idea of where this story is going. Not sure about a lot of things yet but I'll get to those when i get to them. Here's a slightly uneventful yet at the same time extremely eventful chapter. I hope you enjoy, and as always leave a review to let me know what you think.

* * *

Deidara's making his way down the hall when he sees that girl from when he was recruited, run down the hall. He stops to let her pass and watches her. She seems to be in a hurry as she runs past him. He then notices Itachi watching her go from the doorway of his room.

The older Uchiha coughs into his elbow and frowns a bit and then heads down the hall in the opposite direction of the orange haired girl. Deidara watches him for a second before continuing down the hall.

After awhile of walking down the many confusing and dimly lit hallways, he realizes that he and Itachi are both going to Sasori's room. "You going to see Sasori too?" he asks as he catches up with the other man and matches his pace.  
Itachi looks at Deidara, he looks a little paler than usual. "Yes."

"What business do you have with him?" the blonde artist asks rather curiously.

"My business with Sasori is not of your concern," Itachi replies.

Deidara frowns. "Jeez. I'm sorry I even asked."

The two walk in silence until finally getting to Sasori's door. Everyone's rooms in the base are pretty separated. This made it easier to hide things in case it was discovered. It also made it easier to capture anyone that somehow got into the base.

Itachi knocks on the old wooden door when they get there and then waits. Deidara waits a little bit behind him.

Sasori opens the door, not in Hiruko for once. He looks Itachi over and then motions for him to come in. Itachi goes into the room and Deidara goes to follow. Sasori however, pushes the blonde back. "You wait out in the hall," he says and then slams the door in the other artists face.

"What the hell Sasori!" Deidra exclaims. However, there is no response to his exclamation and he ends up sitting on the floor across the hall from the door and pouting like a child, while he waits.

* * *

"Well, I suppose the good news is that it's progressing much slower than I had predicted," Sasori, says to Itachi, who is sitting on a wooden chair by Sasori's work bench. "Though you're going to need to start on medication now. Like I told you before, it won't get rid of the disease but it will at least prolong your life," he explains.

Itachi nods. "I'll take the medication," he says. "I can't die. Not yet anyways," he adds.

Sasori nods. "It'll take some time to get everything I need to make the medication. It's going to take some rare herbs but I think I can make something that will help slow down the sickness even more."

Itachi nods, "Alright. Is there anything you need me to get?" he asks the red headed puppeteer.

"No, you need to rest as much as possible," Sasori tells him. "I assume you don't want me to tell anyone about this as usual?" he asks.

Itachi nods. "It won't interfere with my work here. Pain doesn't need to know and neither does Tora," he says.

Sasori sits down at his work bench and grabs a stray piece of paper as he figures out what he needs to try for a medication to slow down the disease.

Itachi gets up and heads to the door to go back to his room. "I'll let you know if I develop anymore symptoms," he says and then opens the door. He sees Deidara, sitting cross legged on the floor across the hall from the door. He steps out into the hall and leaves the door open. "You can go in now," Itachi says as he walks down the hall.

Deidara gets up and watches him go before going into the room and shutting the door behind him. "What was that about?" he asks.

Sasori folds up the list and pockets it before turning his attention to Deidara. "None of your business. Now what do you want. Does Pain have a mission for us?" he asks him

Deidara just tosses him the scroll with the information on it.

Sasori catches it and opens it. He scans over the contents quickly. "We'll leave tonight and get there by dawn," he says and then closes the scroll and tosses it back to Deidara.

"You're not one for talking much are you," Deidara says as he puts the scroll back in his pocket.

"It's a waste of my time to talk to you. We are partners and nothing more," Sasori says. "I don't even know why they bothered getting me another partner. It's not like I need one," he mutters, more to himself than to Deidara.

Deidara glares at him, "Jeez, what crawled up your ass and died? it's not like I wanted to come here," he snaps and then heads out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Great," Sasori mutters, "I'm working with a drama queen."

* * *

Deidara stomps down the hallway, heading back to his room. What the hell was that guys problem anyways? Everyone here just treated him like shit. They could at least try to make conversation or something. What had he done to deserve this anyways?

Tora is coming down the hall, walking right towards Deidara. She's not currently using her chakra to see what's around her because she doesn't need to. She practically knows these halls like that back of her hand now. Wait, that's probably not a very good simile since she hasn't seen her hand in over a year. She shrugs to herself and just continues to walk, not expecting to walk smack right in to Deidara.

Both of the fall to the floor.

"Jesus kid, watch where you're going," he snaps at her as he sits up and rubs his back a bit.

She frowns when he says that. "Sorry…" she says kind of awkwardly. She wasn't used to him being around here. It had always just been her, 'tachi, Sasori, Konan, and sometimes Kakuzu though she'd never really talked to him. 'tachi had told her it was best to avoid him if possible.

Deidara gets up. "yeah whatever," he mutters.

Suddenly the sound of paper rustling in the wind is heard, which is weird because the hallway isn't windy at all. Tora get's up and grins. She'd know that sound anywhere.

"It's hard to watch where you're going when you can't see," a soft woman's voice says from behind Deidara, startling the blonde and making his jump.

"Hi Konan," Tora says happily.

Konan smiles at her. "Hello there sweetie," she says, before dropping the smile and returning her attention to Deidara. "Now I believe you should apologize to Tora," she says.

He turns around to face her. "Why should I? She's the one who walked into me."

"If you didn't understand me the first time, how about I say it again. She's blind. She can't watch where she's going all the time because she doesn't have enough chakra for it," Konan explains, clearly irritated with the newest Akatsuki member.

Deidara's eyes widen in understanding and he looks over his at the little girl. How the hell was he supposed to know that? "I uh… shit…" he says.

"That's what I though," Konan says. "Now are you going to apologize?"

He nods and turns back to face Tora, "I'm sorry," he says, bowing slightly. "I didn't know you were blind."

Tora giggles.

Deidara frowns, straightening his back and looking at her. "Something funny?"

She shakes her head. "Thank you for apologizing, it's ok," she says.

Konan looks between the two. "You haven't officially met Tora have you?" she asks him.

"No, She was there when I was recruited but no one ever told me who she is," he replies.

Konan nods and goes over to Tora. "Well, this is Tora. She's Itachi's daughter," she starts and then looks at Tora before saying, "and Tora, this is Deidara. He's the newest member of the Akatsuki."

Tora nods and grin "Nice to meet you mister."

Deidara nods a bit, staring at her. "How could she possibly be that guys daughter? She has to be like at least 7 years old if not older," he says. "Itachi's not that old… is he?"

Konan shakes her head. "No, she's actually only 5 years old," she replies. "I'm sure someone will explain it more to you sometime. Now if you'll excuse us, Tora and I have some business to attend to."

Tora's eyes widen and she grins. "We do?!" she asks excitedly.

Konan smiles at her and nods, "yes we do, now let's go before it gets too late."

Tora grins even wider somehow and happily skips down the hall with Konan, away with Deidara, who just stands there and watches the two walk away.

He sighs and just walks back to his room. "Is everyone around here either an asshole or weird?" he asks himself. All the interactions he'd had today had exhausted him. He was ready for a nap and it wasn't even noon yet.


	11. Chapter 11

Here's another chapter. I hope you enjoy it. As always like and review to tell me what you think :)

* * *

Tora practically bounces with excitement as she walks to pain's office with Itachi. She'd only ever seen him once, when she was staying with Konan while Itachi was away on a mission. She hasn't even officially met him yet, but Itachi had told her that today she would finally get to go on a real mission.

"Calm down, missions are serious business," Itachi says to her.

She nods and makes a serious face. "Right, serious business," she says, but then returns to grinning because she just can't contain her excitement.

The approach a set of large wooden double doors which Itachi opens and let's Tora go in first. He then follows her into the room which is rather bland looking. It's nothing special. There's a set of three chairs two of which are on either side of the room. Pain sits in the third chair which is against the main wall of the room which faces the other chairs.

"Come, sit down," Pain says when he sees them come in.

Tora grins and goes to sit in one of the chairs. Itachi sits in the other one.

"Alright, so you're here for you first mission," Pain says.

Tora nods, "yeah!"

Itachi has to hold back a smile at that.

"Missions aren't all fun and games. They're a very serious and if you're not careful you could die or someone else could die because of you. Normally in a village you'd be teamed up with two other genin but we don't have that luxury right now so you'll be going by yourself," Pain explains.

Tora nods. "Will I ever be on a team like 'tachi or Sasori?" she asks him curiously.

"No, I'd like to involve you in this organizations work as little as possible," Pain replies.

"Why?"

"It's too dangerous for a child to be a part of," he replies.

Tora pouts, "I'm not a child," she says, even though she is only 6 and clearly a child.

Itachi sighs a bit, knowing where Pain is coming from. Considering at the age of 13 he was ordered to kill his entire clan to protect the village. He doesn't want Tora to have to go through anything like that ever.

"Anyways, onto the details of your mission," Pain starts and picks up a scroll. "Your job is to go to the sand village and meetup with one of our information sources. You'll give him this scroll," he says and hands her the scroll, "and then you'll get a scroll from him and come back to the base immediately."

She nods and takes the scroll from him, "how do I know who the man is?" she asks.

Pain thinks for a second and then says, "His chakra will tell you. You'll be meeting with him in a cafe called The Suna Cafe. It won't be hard to find. Just ask around and someone will tell you where it is. He should be the only one in there with chakra. It's not a place that many of the sand's ninja hang out at."

Tora nods. "Ok, and how do I get to the sand village?" she asks.

Pain looks to Itachi, who nods before getting up. He goes over to Tora and places his hand on her forehead.

"I'm going to show you the way," he tells her. "Just pay attention and remember it," he says and then puts her into a genjutsu. Where he shows her the long journey to the Sand Village through the forest and then the desert. It's a long way to the village from here and Tora isn't quite sure that she'll be able to remember it.

Itachi then pulls her out of the genjutsu and returns to his seat. "You can remember that right?"

She nods, "yeah I think so."

"Good, now. There's two more things you'll need to get into the Sand village," Pain says and hands her a rain village head band first.

She takes it and feels the symbol carved into the metal. Four straight lines. "What's this?" She questions. She's never seen anything like it before.

"It's a headband, every ninja has one, even rogue ninja. It tells other ninja what village you're from" Pain explains. "You'll also need this," he says and hands her a sealed piece of paper. "If they give you any trouble when you go to enter the village just wear your headband and give them that and you'll be all set."

She takes the sealed letter from him and nods. "Ok. Where do I wear the headband?" she asks him.

"You can wear it anywhere, just as long as it's visible."

She nods and then runs her fingers along the carving on the headband one more before tying it around her waist.

Itachi gets up and bows to Pain. "Thank you for doing this," he says.

Pain nods, "of course. Just be careful Tora," he says.

She nods and gets up. "I will. I promise!" she says rather excitedly. She puts the scroll and the letter in her pouch before following Itachi out of the room.

Itachi goes with Tora to the entrance of the base.

Tora takes a good sniff of the outside air when they get outside and grins. It's always nice to go outside and just smell the air. There's always nice smells in the air. The smell of grass is one of her favorite smells. The way rain smells is really nice too. Ever since losing her sights her others senses have become much more powerful. She can hear and smell things she wouldn't have before.

"Alright, you have everything you need right?" Itachi asks her.

She looks at him and nods. "Yep," she says with a grin.

Itachi smiles the slightest bit and then taps her forehead with two of his fingers. "Alright, be careful, and remember this isn't just fun and games. It's a serious mission that you could put you in danger if it goes wrong."

She nods and hugs him. "I won't let you down 'tachi."

Itachi nods and then watches as she's about to go.

Suddenly Sasori comes out of the base. "Wait a minute," he says and goes up to her, handing her a wooden ring that he carved out of some scraps leftover from one of his projects. "Wear this," he says. "That way if you get lost we can find you," he says more to Itachi than to Tora.

She nods and smiles as she feels all the different swirls and even some writing that she can't read on it. "Thank you," she says and puts the ring on her finger. "I won't get lost though."

"Just in case," Sasori says before heading back inside.

Itachi thanks him as he goes by and then he returns his attention to Tora. "Alright. I'll see you when you get back," he says.

She grins and nods before running off into the forest, following the directions Itachi had given her earlier.

The journey is fairly easy until she starts to get tired. Thankfully she wasn't with anyone else so she could take a break whenever she wants, and she does, quite frequently actually. She stops about every three hours to at least catch her breath if not take a quick nap. She's built up quite a bit of stamina and her Chakra has grown a lot so she isn't quite as exhausted as she used to get when she would use her chakra to see the things around her.

* * *

After traveling for awhile Tora finds a small village on the way to the sand village and stops there to get a quick bite to eat before continuing her journey. She goes to a small shop where there's a young boy working the counter.

He smiles at her and asks, "How can I help you?"

She sniffs the air trying to figure out what food they have. "What do you have for food?" she asks.

The boy looks at her weird, not understanding why she can't see what's clearly in front of her. "Can't you see it? It's all right in front of you." he says to her.

She shakes her head, "I know it's there but I can't tell what it is."

He then nods a bit and tells her what's there.

She smiles and then asks for two bean buns and gives him the money for it. "Thanks," she says with a grin. "Hey, how do you know how to get to the sand village from here?" she asks him. She has a general idea of how to get there but she isn't totally sure on how to get out of this village.

He nods, "Yeah, just go north out of the village and then head to the north east and just go in that direction for awhile. You'll eventually hit the desert and then you'll get to the sand village.

"Which way is north?" she asks.

He points and she uses her chakra to see what direction he's pointing in. "Thanks!" she says and runs off in that direction with the bean buns, eating them as she runs out of the village and back into the forest going in the direction that he told her to go in.

* * *

It takes her a total of 4 days to finally get to the sand village. The desert was so hot that she was sweating by the time she got there. She'd actually gotten lost for a bit because of all the nothing in the desert. There were no landmarks or anything to tell her if she was going in the right direction, just sand as far as the eye could see.

She grins when she sees the large wall of rock in front of her and begins to run excitedly towards the entrance. However, she's stopped by another ninja who grabs her and holds a kunai to her throat. "Trying to attack the village?" he asks her.

She yelps in surprise when she's grabbed and grabs his arm to try and get the kunai away from her throat. "N-No!" she exclaims. "I-I have a letter proving it." she says, her voice wavering as she speaks. She's scared that this man is going to kill her and because of that she shoots a bone out of her shoulder to get him away. It cuts the mans arm, making blood stain her shirt.

He quickly jumps away when she does that, holding his arm. "Then why the large display of chakra?" He asks, watching as the bone returns to the inside of her body.

She pulls the letter out of her pouch and turns to face him. "It's how I see," she tells him and holds out the letter.

He frown and takes it from her, popping open the seal and reading it. The letter clearly shows that she has permission to be in the village for a couple days.

Another man runs over to them, "What is going on here?" He demands.

The man that had attacked Tora turns to the other man. "A Rain ninja, I thought she was going to attack us," he says, handing the letter to the new man. Tora stands there, nervously waiting to see what he has to say.

"Alright, it says here that you're clear for entry but we can't have you displaying such a large amount of chakra to everyone in the village. It will make everyone feel unsafe," he says to her.

She frowns. "B-but I can't see if I don't spread my chakra around me," she stutters a bit.

The man frowns. "A blind ninja?" he questions. "That's a new one. Then again the rain village must be desperate at this point," he says more to himself than to her. "Alright fine, do what you need to do to see but we'll be keeping an eye on you."

She smiles and bows to them. "Thank you so much, I promise not to cause any trouble," she says.

The two ninja nod and then lead her into the village. She gladly follows them. "Wow, this is so different from the other villages I've been to," she says. Looking around her using her chakra.

"Well when your village is in the middle of the desert, you have to make the most of what you have," one of the tells her.

She nods and continues to follow them into the village.

"Do you need help finding where your going?" The other man that had attacked her asks.

She nods, "I'm actually looking for The Suna Cafe."

Both men look a bit surprised. "Gorou, you go back to the gate. I'll escort this young lady," one of the men says.

The man that had attacked Tora nods. "Yes sir!" he says and then disappears.

Tora gladly follows the other man, feeling much safer with him.

"I apologize for my comrades behavior earlier," he says to her as they walk through the village. "It's his first time guarding the entrance to the village and he can be a bit jumpy," he explains.

"It's alright," she says with a smile.

The two walk in silence again before the man asks her a questions. "I'm curious, how old are you."

Tora almost says six but then remembers what Itachi told her to say if anyone ever asked her that. It would be bad if she said an age that she didn't look at all, so instead she answer, "9."

"Only 9? Wow. You must be quite a talented ninja."

"That's what 'tachi always tells me," she says with a grin.

"Is Tachi your sensei?" he asks her.

She nods and says, "and my dad."

The man gives her a strange look. "Interesting. Why are you here alone?" he asks her.

She grins and explains, "this is my first mission!" she says excitedly.

"I remember my first mission," the man says with a nostalgic expression on his face. "You're lucky that you got to leave the village for it instead of having to do some dumb chore around the village."

"Really?" she asks, obviously having no idea about any of this. She isn't even technically part of the rain village. Pain had pulled some strings to do this for her. That's what Itachi had told her anyways.

"Really. If they're letting you go to another village for your first mission by yourself, you must be pretty talented," he tells her.

This just makes her grins more. She had no idea that she would have to be so talented to do this by herself. Then again they are trusting her with a lot.

After turning another corner the man stops and points out the cafe. "Here we are. Are you going to be needing anymore help while you're here?" he asks her.

She shakes her head in response. "Nope, this is it. Thank you!" she says before going inside.

It's a small place really with lots of plants for decorations. There are about 6 tables and 5 booths in the whole place and it's rather quite. There are multiple people in the building. Some are waiting by the counter for the food and others are sitting and talking with their friends while they eat. Itachi was right, almost no one here was a ninja. She couldn't sense any chakra coming from any of them except for one. She approaches the booth in the very back corner of the cafe and sits down across from the man that's already sitting there.

"Huh, I didn't know they were working with children now," the man says. "Is it just you?"

She nods and then pulls out the scroll that she was supposed to give to him.

"Alright, and no one suspects a thing right?" he whispers

She smiles and nods. "They just think I'm a ninja from the rain village here on my first mission," she replies and slides the scroll across the table to him.

He takes it and opens it, scanning the contents of it quickly before closing it and pocketing it. His hand returns to the table with another scroll that he slides over to her. "Here, this is what they asked for," he tells her.

She takes it and nods, pocketing it before watching as the man gets up and heads out of the cafe. She then gets up and goes over to the counter to order something to eat because boy was she starving.


	12. Chapter 12

Holy crap what's this? An update after several months. It's a christmas miracle! Except it's like august and no where near christmas. Sorry I haven't updated in so long. But it's finally here. I hope you enjoy it. Now it's time for me to go work on chapter 13. Let me know what you think.

So far everything had gone smoothly. She'd gotten the scroll from the man and was now heading back to the base. She'd gone through the desert as quickly as possible. She didn't like how it messed with her senses so she'd stopped as little as possible.

Now she's running through the forest about half way back to the base at this point when she suddenly senses a large concentration of chakra heading her way, she quickly jumps out of the way of the attack and stops on a branch. She sees a group of ninja a couple yards away from her.

"What's a rain ninja doing in the land of fire?" one of them asks her.

She frowns in confusion. "the land of fire? What's that?" she asks.

One of the ninjas, a women, laughs. "How can you not know about the land of fire? What are they teaching you in that village?"

Another ninja, this time a man, approaches Tora. "We're going to have to take you in for questioning," he says to her.

Tora's eyes widen and she shakes her head. "No, I have to get back home," she says.

"And you will, but for now you need to come with us. You've trespassed on our land and we need to make sure that it was just an honest mistake," he says and reaches out to grab her arm.

Bones explode out of her, cutting the man, causing him to shout and jump back.

The ninja all stare at her in shock. Her shirt is pretty torn up now. Her ribs jutting out of her chest and bones poking out of her arm and back.

"Stay away!" she exclaims and swings her arm out in front of her, firing bones from her fingers at them.

They quickly scatter and Tora turns and starts to run away from them. Her heart is pounding and the blood is rushing through her body as she runs as fast as she can. What would they do to her if she got caught? She didn't know these ninja and they scared her, even if they did sound like they weren't going to hurt her. She didn't trust them. So she ran, but she could sense them gaining on her. She had to lose them somehow. But how? They were all so much bigger than her. Probably faster too.

Suddenly one of them is in front of her and she jumps back as they throw a kunai at her. She quickly draws her bone sword from her shoulder and deflects the kunai. Another one of the ninjas, the woman, grabs her from behind and she sends a bone out of her back right into the woman behind her, who cries out in pain. She collapses to the ground, holding her stomach after Tora removes the bone.

Another one of the ninjas charges at her and she sends bones out of her body and begins to spin in a sort of dance. However, the ninja deflects each bone with a kunai in each hand and he ends up making it impossible for her to spin. She tries to get away from him but before she can she feels something wrap around her ankles and she ends up falling to the ground. She struggles, trying to break free of the ropes around her legs.

"Jeez, we almost got bested by a kid," one of them says.

"Just tie her up and knock her out. We need to bring her back to the village," the woman says and begins to walk away.

Tora continues to struggle, but it's no use, by the time she even thinks of using her bones to cut the ropes she feels a hand on her head and then everything goes silent.

—

Sasori looks up from the scroll he's reading when he can't feel Tora's chakra as strongly anymore. He frowns and gets up, immediately going to find Itachi.

As he's nearing Itachi's room he sees Kisame walking away from the door. "Is Itachi in there?" he asks him.

"No. I came to see him about our next mission but he isn't there.

Sasori frowns. "Well if you see him, tell him to come see me immediately."

"Why, did something happen?" Kisame asks, rather curiously.

"I think Tora's in trouble. She suddenly stopped using her chakra like usual and I'm almost positive she was on her way back to the base," Sasori explains.

Kisame frowns, "Maybe it would be best to just go check it out. We can tell Itachi what happened later."

Sasori nods, "Yes, that would be the best course of action. Especially if she's in danger."

However before the two can even move Pain comes walking down the hallway quickly. "Sasori, you're coming with me. We have a lead on a potential partner for Kakuzu and we can't let this opportunity go to waste," he says.

Sasori nods and looks at kisame. "You're on your own with this," he says and takes a wooden ring, just like the one he gave to Tora, out of his pocket and hands it to the blue man. "Take this. It'll lead you right to her," he says and then follows after Pain.

Kisame looks at the ring for a second before heading to his room and grabbing Samehada. With the sword on his back, he leaves a note for Itachi on the other mans door and then heads out of the base and off into the forest, following the sensation of Tora's chakra that he gets from the ring.

—

When Tora wakes up, she has no idea where she is. Her arms are pinned down to what she assumes are the arms of a chair. She tries to move but she can't. She is effectively stuck to the chair. She then tries to tap into her chakra to at least see her surroundings or find a way out but she can't.

Her eyes widen in fear when she realizes that she can't use her chakra. She's in new place and she can't see a god damn thing. She quickly turns her head to the left when she hears a door open in that direction.

"So you're finally awake," a deep and gravely voice says.

Tora bites her lip as she listens to the man walk over to her and sit down across from her. The scrapping sound of the chair makes her cringe a bit.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. The only reason we did this was so you wouldn't attack us," the man tells her.

"Wh-who are?" she asks.

"My name is Ibiki. What about you. What's your name?" he asks her. He honestly sounds rather friendly, especially compared to the ninja that had captured her and brought her here.

"T-Tora," she stutters. "A-are you gonna hurt me?" she asks.

"No of course not. I do have some standards. I can see that you're just a child. We've contacted your village and are currently waiting to hear from them," he tells her. "Now would you mind telling me what exactly you were doing in the land of fire?"

"Everyone keeps mentioning this land of fire thing, but I don't know what that is" she says, clearly confused.

Ibiki frowns and then pulls out the pouch they'd confiscated from her and looks at the contents. He picks up the scroll and inspects it. It looks like a normal scroll, nothing suspicious about it. "Where were you heading when the leaf ninja captured you?" he asks her.

"I was going home… I was out on my first mission," she says.

"What was your mission?" he asks her.

"Just to meet up with some guy in the sand village," she says. "I was just there to give him a scroll."

He nods and then asks, "What was the contents of that scroll?"

"I don't know. They just said to deliver it to him, get that scroll and come back." she says. "Can I please use my chakra? I can't see without it…" she says.

"Unfortunately no. We can't take the risk of you attacking us," he says.

"I promise I won't. I-I just want to see."

"So you're blind?" he asks her.

She nods.

"We're you born that way?" he asks.

She shakes her head, "Snake mans fault…"

"Snake man?" Ibiki questions. "Do you mean Orochimaru?"

She thinks and then nods. "I think that's what big brother called him," she says.

"Who is big brother?" he asks her.

"Big brother Kimi," she says. "Gone…" she adds.

Ibiki nods. "Can you tell me anything about the snake man? Are you working for him." She shakes her head. "No… Don't remember" she says.

Ibiki nods a bit and knocks on the one way glass behind him. "Get Inoichi." He says.

Tora looks at him, "Who's that?" she asks. "Can I go home yet?" Ibiki gets up. "You'll be free to go soon. Inoichi's just going to come and make sure you're telling us the truth"

"I just wanna go home…" Tora says.

Inoichi enters the room as Tora says this and Ibiki steps out of his way.

"This is the girl?" he asks, tightening his pony tail and taking off his gloves.

Ibiki nods, "Yes. I just need you to make sure she's telling us everything she knows about Orochimaru and the mission she was on." Inoichi nods and sits down in the chair across from Tora. He extends his arms and puts his thumbs together as well as his pointer and middle fingers. "Ninja Art: Mind Transfer Jutsu!"

Ibiki watches as both Inoichi's and Tora's bodies slump over. After a couple seconds however Tora sits up again and starts to speak, however it isn't her talking.

"There isn't much. A lot of it's hard to get to. She was held at one of his abandoned bases. He did a lot of experiments on her," Inoichi tells Ibiki.

"So she doesn't know where he is right now? She's not working for him?" he asks.

"No she doesn't," he says and the suddenly returns to his own body, jolting up from his slumped position.

Ibiki goes over to him. "What happened?"

Inoichi stares at the girl in shock. "She forced me out," he says, sounding rather shocked, as she sits up and looks confused.

Ibiki watches her and then returns his attention to Inoichi. "Did you managed to find out anything else that would be useful to us."

"No. That was all I managed to find before I was forced out. Everything else was buried deep in her mind. There were a lot of mental blocks"

Ibiki nods, "Alright. I'll go and see if we've received any word from the rain village about her. Thank you Inoichi."

Inoichi nods and then the two leave the room, leaving Tora alone.

She sits there, waiting for someone else to come in or to be let go. She just wants to go home. Why can't she just go home?

—

It isn't until the next day that someone comes into the room. She jolts up, "who's there?" she asks, clearly afraid because she can't see. She expects to hear one of the men from yesterday speak but instead she hears a women's voice.

"Hey there kiddo. I'm here to get out," she says.

For a second she thinks it's Konan but then she notices that the voice is just different from Konan's. "Who are you?" she asks. "Can I go home yet?" "My name's Anko. You're Tora right?" she asks as she unlocks the cuffs on Tora's wrists and ankles.

Tora nods and rubs her wrists as the cuffs are taken off. A sense of relief washes over her as she starts to feel her chakra again. She allows it to flow out of her, revealing her surroundings to her. She's still in the same room with a table and a chair and noting else. "Thank you…" she says to the woman called Anko.

Anko grins. "Anytime. Someone from the rain village will be here to pick you up soon. For now how about we go get you something to eat," she says. She then hands Tora all of her stuff that they had confiscated from her upon her capture and waits for her to put it back on. Once everything is back in it's place Anko holds out her hand to Tora. "Come on, let's go"

Tora hesitantly takes Anko's hand and follows her out of the room and through the building. They pass by a lot of people and Tora kind of hides behind Anko.

Anko looks at Tora as they walk out of building. "No need to be afraid of them. No one's going to hurt you," she says.

Tora nods a bit and comes out from behind her and walks alongside her.

"So what do you what do you wanna eat? I'm buying" Anko says.

Tora shrugs. "I dunno."

"How's ramen sound to you?" she asks.

"What's that?" Tora asks curiously.

"You don't know what Ramen is? What are they teaching you in the rain village. Come on. I know a great place. Best ramen in the village," she says and leads Tora to Ichiraku's Ramen stand.

Tora uses her chakra to see her surroundings. It's rather overwhelming, all the different sounds and smells as well as the chakra signatures she can sense. There's a lot of them, however there are also just regular civilians without chakra around.

Anko steps into the stand and sits on one of the four chairs. There are currently only two available chairs. The other two are occupied by two other ninja an older on and a much younger one Tora judges based on their size.

Tora takes a seat next to Anko. She's also sitting next to the younger ninja who is practically bouncing in his seat while he waits for his food.

"Calm down Naruto. It'll be ready soon," the man with the younger kid says.

Tora looks between them and Anko curiously. She's never been to a place like this, or shared a meal with a bunch of people really. Usually it's just her and either Konan or Itachi.

"Hey there Anko, how's it going?" the older man asks.

"It's going pretty good Iruka. Just getting a little something to eat while we wait for a ninja from the hidden rain village," she replies.

The boy looks at the two of them. "Whoa you're from the Hidden Rain Village?! That's so cool, what's it like?" he asks.

Tora moves away from the boy a bit and closer to Anko. He sure is loud. It actually hurts her ears a bit.

Anko laughs a bit at that, and then looks at his forehead and sees the headband there. "Oh hey the brat finally passed his test huh?" she asks

"Hey I'm not a brat!" Naruto exclaims.

"Relax Naruto, look here comes your ramen," Iruka says as and older man comes over with two bowls in hand.

"Here you go kiddo. One piping hot bowl of ramen. It's on the house today congrats on finally passing your test," the older man says with a big grin.

"Thanks pops!" Naruto exclaims excitedly before picking up his chopsticks and beginning to chow down on his ramen.

Iruka laughs and shakes his head a bit, turning his attention to Anko, "Yeah he just passed his test and we're here for some celebratory ramen."

"Well it's about time," she says.

All Tora can hear is the sounds of obnoxious slurping next to her.

Suddenly she hears the older man speak again, this time to her and Anko, "and what would you ladies like?"

Tora stays quiet, not knowing how to answer since she doesn't know what kind of food they have.

Anko speaks up, "two bowls of ramen."

"What's ramen?" Tora asks.

Naruto suddenly speaks up. "wyoudwon'tknwowwotramenis?" he asks, his words very hard to understand around the ramen in his mouth.

"Naruto it's impolite to speak with your mouth full," Iruka says.

Naruto swallows his mouth full of Ramen, before speaking again, "You don't know what ramen is!?"

Tora shakes her head, "No, tachi's never made that for me. What is it?"

"It's the best food ever is what it is!" Naruto exclaims. "Here, try some of mine," he says and holds out some noodles with his chopsticks to her.

She feels something get closer to her suddenly and leans back a bit in surprise.

Naruto frowns when she leans back like that, "what's wrong? It's just ramen. It's not gonna hurt you."

Anko puts a hand on Tora's shoulder and chuckles a little, "It's not the ramen that scared her Naruto. She's blind, she can't see the ramen you just shoved in her face.

"Ooooooooooooo," Naruto says in realization and pulls the ramen away and returns it to his bowl. "You shoulda said something earlier, sorry about that. I didn't mean ta scare ya," he says.

"It's alright," she says and smiles a little.

Naruto grins and returns to happily slurping away at his ramen.

About five minutes later the old man returns with two more bowls of ramen, setting them down in front of Tora and Anko.

Tora uses her chakra to find her chopsticks and pull the bowl a little closer to her. She smiles and then curiously sniffs at the ramen before taking her chopsticks and picking up some of the noodles and eating them.

Naruto and the old man both watch her waiting to see her reaction.

Her eyes widen as she chews the food before swallowing. "It's really good!" she exclaims.

Naruto grins, "I told you! Ichiraku's ramen is the best!"

She nods in agreement, "it really is."

The old man grins, "I'm glad you like it. Yours is on the house too."

Tora grins, "thanks mister!"

"Anything for a first time customer," he says, and then walks away from the counter.

They all happily eat their ramen, no sounds except for the sounds of slurping coming from the booth.

As Tora is just finishing up her ramen, a hand is placed on her shoulder. She jumps in surprise until she feels the persons chakra and realizes who it is. She jumps up and throws herself at the man behind her. "Same!" she exclaims happily.

Anko swallows her mouthful of ramen and gets up. "You must be the ninja from the rain village to get Tora," she says.

The man nods. His skin is white, his eyes bright blue and his blue hair is shoulder length. "That would be me. I'm Risame Horigoshi. I'm Tora's teacher. I apologize for the misunderstanding. It's my fault she wasn't aware of the country borders. I'll make sure she understands them before she goes out on another mission."

"It's alright. We apologize for capturing her. We just had to be sure she wasn't trespassing on purpose. Just make sure she has the right paperwork next time if she's going to be crossing any borders."

"Of course, thank you for taking such good care of her," he says and looks at Tora who is still clinging to him. "Alright, you ready to go?" he asks her.

She lets go of him and lands on her feet. "Yep!"

He smiles the slightest bit at that. "Alright let's go then," he says.

"Just give me one second 'Same" she says and then goes back over to Naruto. She pokes his shoulder and then waves at him with a smile. "Bye it was nice to meet you Naruto."

He grins in return, "Maybe I'll see you again sometime," he says.

"Maybe," she says and then goes back over to Kisame. "Bye Anko! Thanks for the food!" She exclaims as they start to walk away from the booth.

"Travel safe!" Anko calls after them.

Kisame and Tora make their way out of the hidden leaf village together. Kisame holding his disguise until they make it out of the land of fire which takes quite some time. But after they finally cross the border he releases it and they both sit down under a tree for a much needed rest. "I'm surprise Itachi forgot to mention the country borders to you before you left. You need to be careful around them. If you don't have the clearance to be there then they'll take you in for questioning like they did this time," he explains to her.

She nods a bit. "I didn't know I'd crossed the border, it was an accident," she says, playing with the grass underneath them.

"Well they don't know that. You need to be careful. Avoid all other ninja if you can and fight to get away if you do run into them. Especially if you're on a mission for the Akatsuki. They don't like what we're doing," He tells her.

She frowns. "Why don't they like it? We're not doing anything bad," she says, clearly unaware of the purpose of the akatsuki.

He laughs a bit, "such and innocent little girl aren't you?" he asks. "Don't worry about it. Itachi doesn't want you to be too involved in our work," he says.

She continues to frown but doesn't say anything else. Her mind however is full of questions about the Akatsuki and why her dad doesn't want her involved too much.


End file.
